Carlina White surfaced 23 years after her abduction — in effect solving her own missing child case. She developed nagging doubts about her background over the years, eventually prompting her to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

DNA tests proved that she was the biological daughter of Carl Tyson and Joy White, Elizabeth White's daughter.

Now a mother herself, Carlina reunited with her family over the weekend. She blended in so well, it was as if she never left, her grandmother said. She wants to be called Carlina, Elizabeth White said, even though she grew up in Bridgeport as Nejdra Nance.

"She wasn't no stranger," she said. "It seemed like she was raised up around us."

Elizabeth White said she doesn't know much about her granddaughter's life in Connecticut. She didn't talk to her in depth about her upbringing.

She knew a few details, though.

Her "fake mother," as the grandmother calls her, was into "all kinds of drugs," she said. She also abused Carlina, she said.

"[Carlina] was hit in the face with shoes and things," she said.

No suspects were ever identified in the 1987 disappearance of Carlina White, who was 19 days old when she was brought to a Harlem Hospital suffering from fever. Joy White and Carl Tyson said a woman who looked like a nurse had comforted them at the hospital. The couple left to rest after the baby was admitted, and when they returned, the baby was gone.

Carlina, who moved away from her Bridgeport home when she got pregnant as a teen-ager, had questions about her identity. Her "mother" wouldn't give her a copy of her birth certificate, Elizabeth White said.

She spent years scouring the Internet for clues, said Robert Lowery of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She saw a photo of baby Carlina White on the organization's website, said Lowery, who is executive director of the center's missing children's division.

"She did stop at that," he said. "She told us later that she thought that might have been her."

The center staff looked through its records. They called the White family and the New York City police. The police arranged for DNA tests, and when the results came in to the center Tuesday, Lowery said, employees were "ecstatic."

"We were absolutely thrilled," he said. "We are very happy for Carl Tyson and Joy White," he said, who lived "23 years in emptiness," but still held out hope their daughter was alive.

Lowery said he couldn't get into details about the status of any police investigation of Carlina's abduction, but said the FBI has been in touch with the NYPD about the case.

Elizabeth White was more specific about law enforcement's role: "They're looking for her," she said of the "fake mother."

Her daughter, Joy White, who had two more children, always felt Carlina was out there somewhere.

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